AWB Provides Services to Heal Trauma After Super Storm Sandy

By Brenda Duran

As thousands of people continue to pick up the pieces following Superstorm Sandy in the east coast, Acupuncturists without Borders have begun to offer free relief to survivors.

For many of those who still remain homeless and hundreds of thousands who still lack power the stress can become unbearable, leading to severe trauma. The organization began treating people with ear acupuncture and community-style acupuncture treatments to treat everything from anxiety to depression this past week in the New York city region.

"The people are distraught. Our healing clinics will surely bring hope and comfort in the tough rebuilding times ahead," said Daryl Thuroff, a AWB Volunteer and NYC licensed acupuncturist.

In the past, AWB led similar relief efforts to more than 60,000 people to help them recover after Hurricane Katrina, the Iowa floods, the California wildfires, the Boulder wildfires, and with traumatized populations in Nepal, Ecuador, Mongolia, and Haiti.

Organizers said the treatments are effective because often people who are traumatized can't sleep, digest food properly, think, and sometimes even speak. Their nervous systems become stuck in a state of fight or flight.

"Although counseling and talk therapy are important, they cannot address the need alone since severe trauma is a physiological response which becomes locked in the body, and requires a physical intervention to unlock," said Diana Fried, AWB executive director. "The community-style acupuncture treatments provided by Acupuncturists Without Borders serve this function in a way that is low-tech, low-cost, and easy to teach, as well as highly effective."

AWB will be posting the location of clinics as more open in the New York City, Long Island and New Jersey areas. For more information, and to support the work in New York, Long Island and New Jersey go to http://acuwithoutborders.org/donations.php

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